Your daily roundup of news from The Wall Street Journal related to Japan:

A Japanese traveler was sexually assaulted by a man posing as a tour guide near the western Indian tourist city of Jaipur, police said Monday, the second report of such attacks in recent months. Read More »

Your roundup of news from The Wall Street Journal over the weekend related to Japan:

Japan on Sunday stood by its policy to refuse terrorist demands after a video showed one of two Japanese captives held by Islamic State had been beheaded. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed that his highest priority is saving the life of the remaining hostage, journalist Kenji Goto. Read More »

Yamaha Motor Co. will start a new production site in India later this year, aiming to have women make up 40% of workforce — an unusual step in India, where the proportion of women in the workforce is relatively low.

The move is part of Yamaha’s effort to buff up its brand image among women in India, where total demand for motorcycles is projected to jump to about 25 million units in 2018, from about 14 million in 2013. In comparison, total demand in the home market of Japan is roughly flat this year from last, at around 460,000 units. Read More »

Cash-rich Japan and investment-starved India may appear to be natural partners, but their full potential for capital ties and trade has yet to be realized.

A 2011 free trade agreement that looked to accelerate economic cooperation between the two nations has failed to live up to its promise, with trade between Japan and India still languishing at a 20th of the corresponding figure for Japan and China.

But the situation could change now that strongly pro-growth leaders are at the helm of each country. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also known to enjoy a good personal chemistry. Read More »

Beijing’s bureaucrats have clearly done better than New Delhi’s politicians in stoking rapid growth. But the true test, says India’s central banker, comes when the inevitable slowdown hits. Indian democracy, he suggests, may offer a more sustainable long-term economic model than Chinese Communism.

“In democracies, when they go down, there are natural processes that start kicking in, that restore a balance going forward,” Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, said in a Tokyo speech Friday. “What we’ve seen most recently is certainly the electorate in India saying, ‘We are unhappy with the old process of growth and we want a change.’” Read More »

As a number of Japanese companies from NTT Docomo Inc. to Daiichi Sankyo Co. have found out recently, M&A in India can be a tricky proposition.

To begin with, the very word M&A, in India, can stand not only for “mergers & acquisitions” but also “mergers and amalgamations,” according to a report on Indian M&A by Nishith Desai, a law firm that has offices in India, Silicon Valley and other locations.

Docomo is the latest Japanese firm to admit an M&A attempt in India has gone sour: On Friday, the Japanese mobile operator will say it’s selling its 26% stake in Tata Teleservices Ltd. of India. Read More »

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will jet off to India on Saturday having spent less than two days in Tokyo, following his whirlwind trip to Davos. After squeezing in the opening of parliament and a policy speech during his brief return, Mr. Abe now heads to New Delhi for yet another meet-and-greet with a world leader.

While getting results has been a common theme on Mr. Abe’s numerous trips abroad during his second stint as prime minister, the latest trip to India is set to be largely symbolic. The desire to cram the visit into his packed schedule, suggests the importance Mr. Abe places on relations with India and perhaps also indicates a soft spot he has for the nation. Read More »

While the animated adventures of Anpanman–arguably the most popular cartoon series among young children in Japan–have yet to catch on in the U.S., the superhero with an edible bun for a head has found an audience in an even larger market: India.

Japanese anime has long been able to act as a bridge between the world’s third largest economy and other countries even when political and cultural tensions have been the source of great friction. India, meanwhile, has made great strides to move its animation industry forward in recent years with titles like “Chhota Bheem” aimed squarely at a domestic audience. Read More »

India may be the world’s fastest-growing mobile-phone market, but no-one said it was a predictable one, or that success there would be easy.

That’s a lesson Japan’s largest telecom carrier, NTT Docomo, learned the hard way. Not only has it been reeling from stiff price competition from local carriers, in February last year, it was thrown for a loop when local authorities cancelled 122 telecom licenses granted to eight companies, citing fraud in the allocation of the permits that allow carriers access to chunks of airwaves to supply network services. The permits were then put on auction again. Tata Teleservices, in which Docomo holds a 26% stake, had three of its licenses cancelled. Read More »

About Japan Real Time

Japan Real Time is a newsy, concise guide to what works, what doesn’t and why in the one-time poster child for Asian development, as it struggles to keep pace with faster-growing neighbors while competing with Europe for Michelin-rated restaurants. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, the site provides an inside track on business, politics and lifestyle in Japan as it comes to terms with being overtaken by China as the world’s second-biggest economy. You can contact the editors at japanrealtime@wsj.com